Michael Don, 51 and Beni Golani, 50; $46 million (combined); #4 Richest.
Partners Michael Don and Beni Golani brought affordable, mid-scale ethnic food to Kyiv in 1996 when they opened Uncle Sam’s American Bar & Bistro, the city’s first American-style steakhouse.
Today, it is simply known as Sam’s and is still located on the corner of Zhylianska and Volodymyrska streets.
Michael Don. Courtesy photo
Opened just five months after Arizona’s BBQ, another Kyiv expatriate mainstay restaurant, Don said Sam’s Steakhouse turned a profit in just seven months.
“We adopted a Western-style, professional approach to managing restaurants. This is what has driven our success.”
– Michael Don.
“We adopted a Western-style, professional approach to managing restaurants. This is what has driven our success,” Don told the Kyiv Post in earlier interviews.
Born in Kyiv, Don emigrated to the United States in 1989 with “$1,350 in my pocket, two kids and wife, and not knowing a lick of English.”
He quickly integrated into the New York community and started a construction company, which is when he met his friend and partner, Golani, a native of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Years later, the tandem was to return to a now post-Soviet turf as expats with the bold idea of setting up restaurants.
“He commissioned me to work on his house in Maryland and we immediately clicked,” Don said, recalling how he and Golani teamed up. “It was like we knew each other all our lives.”
Golani was in the Washington, D.C. restaurant scene then, owning three popular restaurants. Don learned quickly from his new mentor and eventually took a trip back to Kyiv in 1993 to explore business opportunities.
Beni Golani. Courtesy photo
At first he was shocked to have seen how his native city had deteriorated in such a short period of time and cut his trip short. “Boryspil was like a ghetto. Kyiv’s streets were a mess. It was scary,” Don said.
But he returned, investing $250,000 to $400,000 into each restaurant since. Following Sam’s was Tequila House, Mimino, a Georgian restaurant, Golden Gate Pub & Restaurant, then Lipskiy Osobnyak followed by Marakesh.
“We had to have a managing company. We just couldn’t be at five places all at once during dinnertime.”
– Michael Don.
After the opening of their fifth restaurant, Don and Golani lumped them all into the Mirovaya Karta Corporation umbrella company, offering repeat customers a discount card, a practice many began to emulate.
“We had to have a managing company. We just couldn’t be at five places all at once during dinnertime,” Don said.
Today, the two control 66 percent of Mirovaya, with 20 restaurants, including 18 Sushiya chain restaurants.
They also have licensing rights for two Buddha Bars from the original Paris venue: one in Kyiv on Khreshchatyk and the other in Washington, D.C. Don said they always reinvest heavily and have plans to open a brick oven pizza restaurant soon in Kyiv called El Molino.
According to Don, Golani and he are also partners in the hotels Khreshchatyk and Razgulaevo, as well as in the AILAZ Medical Center. Together, they employ more than 2,000 people.
Don, who has residences in Kyiv, Maryland and Florida, said he spends 60 percent of his time in Ukraine, co-managing the company and always eats out at one of his restaurants.
“I only have fruit in my house,” Don said.
It’s always a reassuring sign when the owner eats at his own joints.
